


Leaving Is (not?) An Option

by Corvid_Knight



Series: Integrated Worlds [8]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Not sure about that tag, Physical Abuse, Sexual Abuse, Underage Smoking, bro's trained dave to not do anything that'd get bro in trouble, dave is fifteen and his situation is royally fucked up, grooming?, integrated worlds au, intervention by police, is bad, no onscreen sex or violence but mention of both, ouch ouch ouch, really bad shit because bro is scum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-15
Updated: 2018-06-17
Packaged: 2019-05-23 16:18:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14937702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Corvid_Knight/pseuds/Corvid_Knight
Summary: When cops show up at the apartment, Dave assumes Bro's going to weasel his way out of things like he always does.Surprise, surprise. Not this time.





	1. Chapter 1

_Cigarettes taste fuckin' awful,_ you think, and breathe out a lungful of smoke that's almost invisible in the half-dark of a Houston night, as viewed from the fire escape. And they do. They do taste fuckin' awful. 

But you kind of prefer burning tobacco to the salty-sick taste of blood in the back of your throat. That's your alternative right now, because you broke rule #245. 

_Don't do anything he doesn't want you to do during a scene._

In your defense (not that you deserve a defense) it wasn't a conscious choice. No, you were doing _exactly_ what he wanted, playing for his goddamn cameras, rolling your eyes up towards his face as if you could actually get any kind of reaction behind those goddamn anime shades, moaning like you were as close to getting off on that shit as he was. He was the one who slapped you. He was the one who made it an actual fucking blow, not just acting to make his video hotter—

Fuck. 

Broke rule #8. One of the big ones, the ten fucking commandments of the House Strider. _It's never his fault._

You draw in a full inhale of tobacco smoke, lower the cigarette from your mouth and hold your breath while you go over the first ten rules in your mind. 

_#10. Don't hide shit he wants to know._ You break that one. A lot. You'd be dead if you didn't. He lets you hide food and shit for when you can't face jumping through his hoops to get it; you know he knows every fucking hiding place in your room. He knows everything. His cameras catch every moment of your existence.

_#9. Pass every fucking class you take with at least an A grade._ You can do that. Easy. It's online courses all the fucking way, Dave Strider never has and never will set foot in an actual fucking school, and you know they're tougher than normal shit but that doesn't stop you from getting high marks really fuckin' easily. The only exception was when he broke your arm and you failed two math tests because you took them on pain meds; dropped your average down to a C. You knew he wouldn't kill you for that, but it sure felt like he tried. 

_#8. It's never his fault._ It is. This rule just means you can't blame him. You don't dare blame him, not even inside your own head.

_#7 Don't ask for shit._ Flexible. Sometimes #7 just doesn't fucking apply; he gets generous once in a while. Other times, though? Asking for anything, clothes or food or a new CD, anything, will get you shoved up against a wall and snarled at, his voice even more terrifying for all that it never rises loud enough to be heard in the next room.

_#6. Stay where he wants you._ If he says to sit down, you sit. You move where he directs you. You don't leave the fucking apartment without express permission. 

_#5. Don't touch his shit._ Just don't. Yeah, you took the cigs, but he saw you do it. Didn't say a word, didn't make a sound. That's different. Probably. 

_#4. Don't throw fights._ This rule, you don't break anymore. It means broken ribs instead of bruises and cuts, it means spitting up blood and wondering what's broken inside you as he stands by the door off the roof and stares down at you without saying a fucking word. It means being forcefully reminded that your existence is both powerless and fragile. 

_#3. Don't fucking lie to him._ Never. He knows. He always knows.

_#2. Don't ever question him._ Not out loud, not in your head. He'll find out. 

And the big one, number fuckin' one, the prime directive: _Strider shit stays with Striders._ On your end, at least. You don't talk about shit with anyone else, you don't touch the videos he makes with you, you bandage the gashes and cover the bruises and say that you're fine. 

Because you are. 

You're fine. 

Fuck. 

Your lungs are full of smoke and carbon dioxide and absolutely no oxygen. You empty them with a pained wheeze, drawing in air so fast you choke on it and start coughing. The lit cigarette slips through your fingers, a shooting star falling however many feet it is to the ground. 

A lot of feet. 

Probably enough to convert anybody who took a dive off the top floor into one cold corpse at the bottom. 

You're breaking a rule. #87. _Don't fucking die._ It used to be #34, but you moved it when Bro started replacing DVDs with the porn parody versions to fuck with you.

Removing #87 altogether has been an idea you've been toying with for a while. Maybe since your birthday, since you hit fifteen. You don't know. 

You do know that it's a long way down. 

_No. Karkat's supposed to message you tomorrow, asshole. Actual videochat, maybe. Get to see the face of a guy on another planet. You really gonna pass that up because of a bloody nose and a dropped cigarette?_

Well...no. You're not. 

You wonder if you have time for another smoke. Then you hear Bro's voice, from inside the apartment, and you decide that no, no you do not. Not unless you want to make today exponentially worse. 

You collect the half-full pack of cigs and the lighter, and slip back into the building. Bro's not in sight, which could be either good or bad. He's still talking, which is probably good—he's not going to ambush you, it's fine—

Fuck. No. It's not fine. It's not fine, because you can hear another voice under the familiar one, trying to talk around him, and even if you can't pick up either thread of discussion very well you can still catch a couple phrases. 

_Illegal activities. Possession with intent to sell. Noise complaints. Probable cause._

_Search warrant._

You fucking _freeze,_ two feet from the door that this convo's taking place right past. _Fuck_. You're wearing a pair of boxers and nothing else; all the questionable marks he's put on you in the last decade and a half are nicely on display. There's blood on your face still. 

And in his room, the setup's still ready for you. The fucking camera might still be rolling—he doesn't care about how much film he uses, he's got goddamn 24/7 footage of every room in the apartment streaming online, but that camera's different because it's not unobtrusive, it's not hidden, and the minute the cop or whoever's in there walks into the room, everything's going to go to hell. 

Shit. Shit. _Shit_. 

You need to do something—

The door opens before you can do anything, and before you think about what you're doing you look directly at the cop. He's a troll, with long and sharply pointed horns; from the way his irises are just filling in with purple, you're guessing he's maybe twenty-five. 

Those gold-and-purple eyes rake over you, take you in in less than a second, and you know you're fucked. Don't even have to look past the cop to Bro to know that. 

You do anyway. He looks bored and faintly amused. No surprise there. The fact that there's a second cop next to him, this one human, _is_ a bit of a surprise. 

"I think I might as well assume you're going to want to question my kid," Bro drawls out. He says it like it's something laughable, and you guess it is; you know better than to ever try to pin anything on him. (You're still terrified that you'll fuck up and admit something by ommitance or some shit, though.) "Go get dressed, lil' man. Can't talk to the nice officers in your skivvies, right?" 

"Yeah, whoops." You shrug, keeping the motion smooth and undefensive, and step backwards towards the door to your room, not wanting to turn your back on the three of them. "Gimme a sec." 

It's only after you're out of view and fumbling a pair of jeans on that you realize how stupid that move probably looked to the cops. How unnecessary. How... _suspicious._

Jesus fuckin' Christ, there's no way you won't slip up and, and no way Bro won't beat the shit out of you for it.

* * *

They don't want to just take you into the living room and talk to you. No, they want to take you into "protective custody." Whatever the fuck that is. 

If they weren't here you wouldn't _need_ protection, dammit! Bro would be finished filming you, you'd be in the shower trying not to make any sounds as you cleaned up the aftermath, it'd be over for the fucking night! Why the hell do people make shit so complicated! 

Bro just shrugs when you look at him for instructions, after the human cop says the shit about protective custody. Like it's your decision. Like he doesn't give a fuck. 

(It's not your decision. He does give a fuck.) 

You don't know what he wants you to do. 

In the end it doesn't matter, because you need to keep up the pretense of being a normal kid. Normal kids go along with cops, quietly and without making any kind of a fuss, because that's what they're trained to do. 

You got a different kind of training, but that's what you do. Make them think you're normal. The purpleblooded troll stays to finish whatever kinda business he's conducting here, searching the place or whatever the fuck, and the human takes you down to the car in front of the building. 

She doesn't put you in the backseat behind the bars. Thank god. If you're in an enclosed space where you can't have the option of opening the door, you might actually panic. 

You buckle the seatbelt and slump down, playing dead. Playing asleep. Whatever.

* * *

The cop brings you in, has you sign in like you're a goddamn guest—why the fuck does she have to do it like that? You're not a guest, maybe not a prisoner yet but not a _guest_ —and leaves you in a room with a TV and three chairs and a table and one wall that's wholly taken up by a mirror. 

The chairs are all uncomfortable. You try them all, just to be sure. There's a camera high up in the corner, not quite out of reach if you really wanted to trash the damn thing. 

You don't do that, even though you kind of want to. You don't flip off whoever's probably watching on the other side of that damn mirror, either, even though you _really_ want to.. What you _do_ do is pull one of the chairs up to the table, cross your arms on the flat surface and lay your head on them. Nothing to see here, just a kid they dragged out of his house so they could fuck with his asshole guardian. Just a kid who wants to sleep. 

Of course, you don't sleep. You sit there with your eyes closed, breathing steady and deep just in case someone's keeping an eye on you, and you let the worry machine in your head crank up into overdrive, let the nonexistent gauges start ticking towards redline. 

God, there's so many ways this can go south. Yeah, Bro's probably going to talk his way out of the shit with the cop back at the apartment—after all, as long as they don't check specific places, open the exact right closet and pull the right box down, go through his computers and know which of the files has his fucked-up shit on it, it'll be fine, right? They'll jack him up, maybe drop him in jail for a couple nights if he's got enough of the wrong kind of drugs stashed in the apartment, but if that happens he'll just call in one of his "friends" to keep an eye on you, he'll be in a horrible mood for maybe a week when he gets back, but it'll be fine, right? 

Right. 

Except for the setup in his room. There's that. Out in plain sight. Camera still in place, just asking to be checked out, and what's going to happen if the cop _does_ check it out? If he finds the footage of you, on your knees in front of him—

_Stop it,_ you tell yourself, mouthing the words since your face is hidden. _Fuckin' stop it, you're not changing a goddamn thing by agonizing over this shit. Go the fuck to sleep, why don't you._

Unfortunately, you don't manage to go to sleep. You also don't manage to stop thinking. 

Goddamnit.

* * *

Eventually, a woman with a folder and a sympathetic look comes in and sits down on one of the other chairs. You wait for a minute or two, decide she isn't going to leave just because you look asleep, then raise your head and blink at her like you're not sure where you are. 

Your shades are on the table; you reach for them, half because you want to cover up some of the bruises that're probably rising from where Bro slapped you and half because you want to see if she'll tell you to leave them alone. Might as well pick up some clues on how she thinks. 

She doesn't say anything until you have the aviators back on your face. Probably not a real cop; they wouldn't let you have this much of an advantage. Lawyer? Social worker? CPS representative? Fuck if you know. 

"Hello, David," she says. That's not your name, but you don't intend to correct her. Not volunteering info to cops and people working with cops isn't a numbered rule, but that's only because it's common fucking sense. "My name's Diane Cafferty, and I'd like to talk to you about your guardian." 

Huh. She's giving you a choice of whether to use her first name or her last, to see what you do. Psychiatrist, maybe. "Not sure what you want to talk about." 

"We have a variety of complaints that've been filed against him." Papers come out of the folder, get slid across the metal table towards you. Since you can't think of any way that wanting to read them would be incriminating, you pick up the one on top of the pile. "Well, technically most of them are against both you and him, but you're a minor, one in a situation which is suspected of being abusive." 

_Suspected_. Means they probably didn't find the porn, or the videos he's recorded of the strifes. 

(Yet.) 

"Dunno what you're talking about." The papers are just reports of the complaints the neighbors have made. The fighting on the roof, noise complaints, non-tenants coming and going at all hours, somebody accusing Bro of doing a drug deal in the hall. Stupid; he keeps that shit either in the apartment or well outside the building. It's a _don't shit where you live_ thing. "He's cool." 

"Cool?" she asks, picking up the papers as you slide them back to her. "Well, it's nice that you have such a good relationship with him." 

"Yeah, I guess." Oh, she's going to pull a conversational high card, isn't she. 

"Did he have anything to do with what happened to your face, David?" 

Some high card. "Tripped coming down the stairs and slammed my face into the door," you lie. You could pass a goddamn polygraph, you've told that lie so many times. You are the Anti-Pinocchio. It's you. "Got read the riot act on watching where I put my fuckin' feet." Wait a beat, then pretend to realize what you just said and be embarrassed by it. "Oh fu—I mean, oh crap, sorry ma'am—" 

"You're fine, don't worry about it." Damn, she isn't going to be sidetracked that easy. "Officer Richards reported that you have significantly more scars that could really be considered normal for a boy your age." 

It's an obvious leading question. You just shrug—don't volunteer information. "I guess." She'll let it go. She has to let it go. 

She doesn't. 

"Could you tell me about some of those scars, David?" More paper-shuffling; she sets a stack of papers on the table. You recognize the first one on top as a copy of a hospital bill; from the name of the specific hospital, it's either from when he broke your arm, or when your stupid ass caught some kind of nasty flu from one of his friends and got sick enough to need a hospital trip. You're not sure. 

(He rotates which hospital he takes you to, when you need it. Which isn't often; you know how to handle anything short of broken bones, and even then you _might_ be able to deal. But still, once every six months or so would be enough to make the authorities get curious, so you've gone to all five of the close hospitals repeatedly, spread visits out like that.) 

You look away from the papers before she can see how nervous they make you. _She shouldn't have those._ "Dunno what there is to tell. I'm a clumsy doofus, that's all." 

"David, I have notes from the doctor who treated your broken arm that say the x-ray showed signs of repeated microfractures. Like you'd been repeatedly struck in the same way—" 

Yeah, training to swordfight with a guy who doesn't ever pull his punches will do that. 

"—as well as scars indicative of defensive wounds, and of self-harm—" 

Nope, bzzzt, wrong. You don't cut. Not ever. You get enough of that from Bro; not just the training, but the videos. It's the worst kind of setup he puts you through. Knifeplay, bloodplay, _painplay_ , tying you down and hurting you and getting you off for the camera, all at the same time...

It's a struggle to throw that memory off.

Fuck. She's been talking, just asked a question and went quiet. You don't know what it was. 

Doesn't matter. There's only one real answer you can give. 

"Not talking to you 'til Bro gets here," you tell her, and cross your arms over your chest, lowering your gaze to the tabletop. Counting the scratches in the metal helps you tune out her all-too-reasonable arguments for why you should cooperate. 

There's no way you can tell her why you can't.

* * *

She gives up, eventually. 

And when she leaves and you lay your head on the table again, it's only a couple minutes before the same troll from the apartment comes in and gives you a blanket and a pillow. You thank him for both, make the effort to smile, and try not to think about the pity on his face as he walks back out. 

You're starting to think that they did find all Bro's bad shit. 

Which leaves you with a huge, terrifying question: _what happens now?_

You don't know. 

The pillow and the blanket are both soft and comforting. You take advantage of that, and retreat into shallow sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

The only reason that you wake up is because your phone goes off in your pocket, almost startling you off your chair. You fumble it out, staring at the screen for a moment while your brain tries to remember how to read. 

carcinoGeneticist started pestering turntechGodhead!

CG: HEY, ASSHOLE, YOU SAID YOU'D TEXT ME WHEN YOU WERE READY FOR THE CALL. WHAT THE FUCK? 

Fuck. Karkat. 

TG: dude i got some issues tonight   
TG: shit with bro   
TG: gotta reschedule okay   
TG: im sorry

Fuck, no. Don't say that. Not outright. Not until he yells at you some more. He's going to know something's wrong. 

Fortunately (?) Karkat's one of the few people who even kind of know about Bro's shit. Well, some of it, anyway. You talked to him for a couple of hours after Bro slammed your head against the concrete one time; a lot of shit came out. 

(Not the sex shit. Not the videos. But him hurting you. Karkat knows about that.) 

CG: YOUR /FUCKING/ BROTHER.   
CG: I WISH YOU LIVED ON ALTERNIA. HITTING WRIGGLERS TO HURT THEM DOESN'T FLY HERE, YOU KNOW? SOMEBODY WOULD HAVE KILLED HIM SWEEPS AGO. 

TG: lmao sure   
TG: id have been adopted by a troll right   
TG: or like eaten by your lusus things

CG: THEY DON'T EAT PEOPLE YOU FUCKING ASSBRAIN!

TG: are you sure  
TG: are you absolutely sure of that karkat   
TG: if i google "will the giant creepy white troll monsters eat me" ill be informed that they will in fact not eat me

CG: THEY WOULDN'T EAT YOU. THEY'D EAT YOUR ASSHOLE GUARDIAN. IF HE WAS IN RANGE, I'D FUCKING PAY TAVROS TO SIC AS MANY LUSII ON HIM AS IS POSSIBLE.   
CG: THAT'S A LOT OF LUSII, IF YOU'RE WONDERING.

TG: dont worry i wasnt

CG: THAT'S BECAUSE YOU HAVE NO CURIOSITY AND YOU ALSO SUCK.  
CG: ...BUT HEY. ARE YOU OKAY?   
CG: LIKE, I'M AWARE YOU'RE PROBABLY NOT. I'M PRETTY SURE YOU'D ONLY BLOW OFF VIDEOCHATTING IF HE FUCKED YOU UP ENOUGH THAT YOU DON'T WANT ME TO SEE BECAUSE I'D INEVITABLY BE CONSUMED WITH THE NEED TO STOW AWAY ON THE FIRST SHIP TO EARTH, DRAGGING SOLLUX WITH ME BECAUSE THE BEST WAY TO DEFINITELY KILL SOMEONE HORRIBLY IS TO HAVE PSIONICS AND DISSECT THEM WITH YOUR BRAIN.   
CG: BUT STILL. I WANT TO KNOW WHEN YOU'RE HURT, DAVE. I WORRY ABOUT YOU.   
CG: DAVE?

You're curled up in the chair, wrapped up in the blanket, staring at the evidence of a guy on another planet caring about you, trying not to fucking cry all over your phone. Fucking stupid. You shouldn't be this emotional, not now. What if a cop came in? You don't even know if you're allowed to have a phone in here. What if they took him away from you? 

Fuck. 

Can't let that happen. Need him. 

You deliberately think of ending this convo, or having it ended, until you can get yourself under control. 

CG: FUCK. DAVE?    
CG: DAVE, ARE YOU STILL THERE?

TG: yeah definitely  
TG: wifis acting up   
TG: either hes trying to stream vids or were gonna have a storm again

You don't even feel bad about lying anymore. You're not even sure why you're lying, really. Maybe because it feels like you can deny the reality of your situation, if you don't let Karkat know what's going on. Convince him that you're not sitting in a police station, and maybe you can convince yourself. 

TG: im fine i promise    
TG: black eye and thats it   
TG: im tired and my face looks like i slammed it into a door and the wifis shitty and im tired and i dont really wanna subject you to that shit okay

CG: YOU SAID "I'M TIRED" TWICE.

TG: thats because i am so shut up   
TG: hey on a scale of one to ten how pissed are you at me

CG: I'M NOT PISSED AT YOU, YOU IDIOT!

TG: gonna need a numerical answer

CG: NEGATIVE FOUR. HAPPY?

TG: yes

CG: NOW, WHERE YOUR BRO'S CONCERNED? I'M FIRMLY AT FIFTEEN. 

TG: cmon man

CG: NO!    
CG: THIS FUCKING SUCKS, OKAY? YOU SAY IT'S FINE AND YOU'RE /LYING/, HE HURTS YOU AND NOBODY DOES SHIT ABOUT IT!   
CG: AND SOMEBODY NEEDS TO DO SOME FUCKING THING ABOUT IT! I WOULD, I'D FUCKING KILL HIM OR GET SOLLUX OR MITUNA OR VRISKA TO HELP ME DO IT, EXCEPT I'M HALF A FUCKING GALAXY AWAY AND I /HATE/ IT!   
CG: I SHOULD BE THERE WITH YOU! KEEPING THIS SHIT FROM HAPPENING TO YOU! AND I CAN'T BE FOR AT LEAST HALF A FUCKING SWEEP, BECAUSE I'M A FUCKING MUTANT AND I HAD A /LUSUS/ SO DAD DOESN'T HAVE PROOF OF GUARDIANSHIP FROM HATCHING AND I CAN'T JUST GET A PASS FROM ALTERNIA TO EARTH! IT'S NOT FUCKING FAIR!

TG: i   
TG: f uck

CG: DAVE? 

TG: i cant have this convo right now   
TG: im sorry im so fucking sorry 

CG: DAVE, WAIT. DON'T DISCONNECT.

You hit the disconnect option, and immediately drop your phone and cover your face with both hands in an attempt to muffle the awful broken noises that're coming out of you. It doesn't work. Not really. 

You hate how wet your face is. 

You hate making him worry. You fucking _hate_ visualizing the baffled anger and pain on his face, knowing that that's because of _you._ It's your fault. It's all your fault. It's _always_ your fault.

Jesus. This hurts. Physically hurts, like something's breaking inside you. You hope something is—you're already broken, you fucking _deserve_ to be broken, he made you this way and it's—

The door opens, and you jerk upright at the sound. There's got to be a godawful mix of guilt and pain and fear on your face, but you're too blinded by tears to see how whoever this is is reacting to it. 

More pity, probably. You fucking hate that. Disgust would be better. 

"Jesus Christ, Dave..." 

Oh, god. You'd say you know that voice, but he can't be here. He's on Alternia, Bro said he was on Alternia—

_So Bro lied,_ you think as you frantically rub at your eyes with both hands. _What else is new?_

On the heels of that thought comes another: _don't think about him like that._

You can't help it. 

After a second you get the tears cleared away enough to open your eyes. And yeah, your ears were right—D's standing there, right fuckin' there, suit rumpled and hair fucked up like he just woke up. His shades are gone too, letting you get a good look at the pained look on his face. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. 

You automatically stand up—not sure why—and D makes a quiet, unhappy noise and steps forward to pull you into a hug tight enough to remind you that cracked ribs take a fuck of a long time to heal. The ache doesn't stop you from wrapping your arms around him and clinging like a stupid fuck, though, and his nice suit doesn't stop you from burying your still-messy face in his chest to muffle the ugly broken sounds you're making again. 

He's talking. 

You can't force yourself to pay attention right this second. 

How the fuck did he get here? Last time you saw him you were just a kid—what, eight or nine?—and he'd just come back from Alternia with his kids, Dirk and Hal. He was nice, they were nice, fuck, _Bro_ was nice when they were around, you remember thinking that maybe you were just being stupid, maybe the swordfights that'd abruptly started a couple months before D showed up and then just as suddenly ceased were just a weird blip on the Bro radar. But they left, after maybe a week. 

You thought D went back to Alternia. Bro said—

Shit. 

_Bro lied to me._ There isn't even any surprise, just your mind screaming that you can't call him out for it. _Shit._

D's still talking, low and rough and furious slash apologetic. 

"—I should've fuckin' realized something was up years ago, Dave, I'm so fucking sorry, your _face_ —his videos, they showed me some of the shit they're putting into evidence right now, asked me if I knew, and I never did, _never_ thought he'd do that shit, never crossed my mind, I didn't _know_ or I would have stabbed him in the dick and taken you back with me in a heartbeat, okay, I don't know if you believe me but that's the truth, swear to god—fuck, he keeps calling me, him and his lawyer, leaving messages about arrangements to take care of you, how he fixed shit, and if he doesn't fuck off I'm going to get myself fucking arrested because I'm so close to going down to wherever the hell they're holding him and strangling him with his—" 

"D," you choke out, and you want to tell him not to hurt his brother over you but your throat just fucking closes up after that one syllable. Fuck speaking, it's all you can do to breathe. 

"I'm sorry, Dave," he says, loosening his grip on you a little to try to pull you back so he can look at your face. (Unfortunately for him, that would require that you let up on your deathgrip on him. You're not doing that. Letting him look at you is the last thing you want.) "Fuck, how long have they been holding you? Did anybody look at your face, make sure you're okay?" 

The idea of you being okay is painfully ironic. You can't call it _funny_ , but it starts you laughing. And of _course_ you can't stop; you've utterly fucking failed to keep any aspect of this under control, what makes you think you can control yourself? 

It's a completely inappropriate response, and D should ask you what the hell's wrong with you. 

Instead, he peels you off himself once your grip slackens, sits you down in the chair and seats himself in one of the other ones, redwine eyes fixed on you. (After a minute you have to close your own eyes; you can't take his scrutiny.) 

He keeps his mouth shut while you laugh helplessly. Stays quiet when it turns back to sobbing, although he does shift his chair next to yours so he can wrap an arm around his shoulders, let you lean into his steady presence. It's only when you've tapered off into occasional whimpers, rubbing your eyes like a little kid, that D says anything else. 

"The cops can keep you in protective custody for a max of seventy-two hours," he says. "Not here, obviously, if they weren't dealing with Bro and me and Hal getting all up in their data you'd already be somewhere other'n a goddamn conference room—" 

"Interrogation room," you correct him, and try not to wince at how rough your voice is. 

"Okay, yeah, but they should've moved you out of here like an hour ago." 

" 'm fine, " you tell him without opening your eyes, and immediately disprove that by saying "I want to go home," like a fuckin' five year old. Your voice even wavers and breaks on the last word. 

Pathetic. Disgraceful. Bro would kick your ass. 

"You can't go back home," he tells you, so gently it hurts. "The apartment's a crime scene 'til they get done searching his shit; might take a while. Asshole encrypted all those fuckin' cameras; I _hate_ that he got better at coding than me but no use crying over spilt fuckin' milk—" 

"D." He's a lot like you; when he gets upset he just lets words spill out of his mouth in a never-ending flow of vaguely related topics. "Why." 

"Why what?" 

"Cameras." Jesus, you don't want to talk right now. "The fuck are they going through his cameras?" 

D exhales heavily, and you can almost _feel_ his anger rising again. "Dave, I get that you want to protect him—" 

No, he doesn't. He doesn't get that protecting Bro is protecting yourself. 

"—but you know why they're doing that shit, come on. He was filming _you_. Not everything's encrypted—jesus, they think he sold that shit—" 

The decision that you make, in this second, is not one that should be jumped to. You should carefully think it over, weigh the potential benefits and definite risks, determine the strength of D's ties to you (his brother's kid that he's seen maybe a total of twenty times) as opposed to those to Bro (his actual fucking brother that he grew up with.) You should figure out all the possible outcomes before you say anything. Before you admit anything. 

But rule #1 is that Strider shit stays with Striders, and this is D. 

You take a shaky breath, and before D can keep talking you say, "Yeah, he sold them. The videos. It's why he made them." Well. And he liked doing that shit to you. You hate that fact, but you won't deny it. 

D makes a sound that's almost a sob and pulls you into another hug. 

You let yourself be held, let him ramble out disjointed apologies, for maybe thirty seconds. Then you bite down hard on your lip and pull back, wiping all the emotion you can off your face as you look at him, and do the verbal equivalent of dropping a nuclear bomb on all potential bridges back to what you think of as normal. 

"Give me a notebook and a pen, and I can give the cops a step-by-step on how to get at all the incriminating shit they want. He never bothered to make sure I didn't know every password and keycode he used."


	3. Chapter 3

Jesus. You knew it wasn't going to be easy to do this, but _fuck_. 

Remembering the passwords and shit isn't the hard part. You're pretty good at that kind of thing; not sure if it's something he trained into you, or if you just have a knack for memorizing strings of numbers and letters, whether or not they have some meaning. No, you have no problem recalling Bro's passcodes, but writing them down? 

Yeah. _That_ fucks you up. 

What happens is that D leaves and comes back with a notebook that obviously belonged to someone else, a handful of looseleaf lined paper, and an assortment of pens. You're pretty sure he raided some cop's desk for this, which is actually really fuckin' funny. Not really sure why. 

You bypass the notebook, pick a pen at random, and start writing down where Bro's stored his gadgets and how to get into each one, with as much detail as you can. After all, he has a _lot_ of that kind of shit, some of it rigged to wipe itself if it's tampered with and some filled with dead end files full of garbage documents, the actual incriminating shit hiding in there in plain sight. 

Complicated. It's complicated. 

And you get closer to the edge of panic with every line you write down, as much as you try to push that down. By the time you have three pages filled front and back, you're holding your breath as much as you possibly can, just so you don't end up hyperventilating instead. 

D's got to see what you're doing, but he wisely chooses to not call you out on it. At least, he doesn't until the door opens and your pen jerks a jagged line down the page as you cringe down over the paper, instinctively trying to hide what you're doing. 

"Dave?" When you don't say anything, D leans over to put one hand on your shoulder, moving slow and smooth, like he thinks you're some kinda animal, one that might bolt at any minute. (Or turn and bite. Fuck, you hate that part of you wants to classify that as a viable option, that you want to attack him before he attacks you.) 

(God, you're such a fucked up person.) 

"Dave, hey. Talk to me, please?" Fucking hell, he says that like it's the easiest and most logical thing in the world. "You're safe right now, you know that, right? Cops ain't gonna touch you—what do you want, anyway?" 

It takes you a second to realize that last's directed at the cop who just walked in, not at you. Which is good, because you're not really sure what you yourself want. Other than to sleep for a week, the kind of sleep that convinces you that you're dead until you open your eyes. 

Since you obviously can't have that, you take a shaky breath and very carefully don't look up at the cop as you try to figure out what step of unlocking the burner phone Bro keeps the masterlist of access codes for the camera feeds on. You listen even if you don't look, though. Not like he can monitor your ears like he can your eyes. 

"You have at least three people looking for you," the cop says to D. 

"Would you be counting my fucking brother as one of them?" 

"Yes?" 

"Strike him off the fucking list, then. If I see him, I _will_ do something that'll get me arrested, and I'm pretty sure it's your job to keep that from happening." 

"You still have the paperwork to finish for Ms. Cafferty—" 

" _Fuck_ the paperwork." 

Wait, you know that name, though. And even though you oughta just wait until the cop leaves, you glance up at D and wait for him to notice you're looking. "That's the woman who was in here with me, before you showed?" 

He winces, probably at the reminder that he wasn't the first one here. Fuck. "Yeah, she said she tried to talk to you. Social worker or something." 

"What papers?" 

"Custody shit, it can wait—" 

_Custody shit._ It takes you a minute to make sense of that, to realize that what he means is custody of _you._

"D, go do the paperwork. Get that shit straightened out so when I finish this you can get me the _fuck_ out of here, alright?" God, you want to go home. 

D stares at you with the most conflicted expression, like half of him knows you're right and half of him wants to stay here with you. "It can wait." 

"Don't be an asshole." Okay, you can't look at him any longer. Instead, you pretend to be rereading what you've already put down on the paper. "Go talk to her, fill out the goddamn paperwork, see if you can figure out a way I can, y'know. Hey custody of myself or whatever." 

"A way you can do what now, exactly?" 

"I dunno." Fuck. "You gotta get back to Alternia sooner or later; there's no way I'm gonna be able to tag along." _No way you want to drag me out to another planet. No way I wouldn't be a fuckin' burden._ "I can handle myself, y'know. Tell her that. Tell her I'd rather get the fuckin'...emancipated minor thing, than have you responsible for taking care of me."

D's silent for long enough that you almost look up to judge his expression. Almost. 

You don't do that, though. Don't let him see how much you need to not have to depend on him. 

Finally, he sighs and pushes his chair back as he gets to his feet. "You want somebody in here with you 'til I get back?" 

Honestly? Fuck no. "Nah. I'm good. No offense—" this to the cop, who's still standing there patiently, waiting for D to get his ass in gear— "but having anybody who ain't a Strider in here while I'm working on this shit is gonna make it exponentially harder." 

D nods, and pats your shoulder as he heads for the door. "You don't like the police. I get that. Be back in maybe an hour, alright? You got my phone number?" 

"Not unless it's the same one from like, four years ago." 

"Oh, it is." He grimaces, shaking his head slightly. "Despite Hal's best efforts to the contrary. Call me when you're done, and I'll take you to my place, deal?" 

"Deal," you agree, even though you know there's no way you'll be the one to call him, and D nods and shuts the door, leaving you alone again. 

You take a deep breath and keep writing.

* * *

When you finish, you've got nineteen sheets of paper covered on both sides with writing on the table in front of you. Passwords, instructions on how to bypass the anti-tampering measures on the sensitive files, combinations for the safes where he keeps the shit that doesn't involve you ( _snuff flicks_ , your brain points out, and plays a little memory-movie of Bro methodically cutting a rustblood troll's throat to let him bleed out on camera; the fact that you can't summon up any reaction to that probably says something about your mental state right now), the codes to unencrypt those of his recordings that he's locked, detailed descriptions of where he's stashed all the illegal shit you can think of. 

They'll probably find everything even without your help, but fuck. If you're going to trash your life, you might as well do it properly. 

You rub your sore wrist, stare at the paper in front of you, and try to figure out how you feel right now. 

You feel fine. 

(You don't feel anything. Empty. You're trying to put Bro in prison for as long as possible, and you don't understand how you feel nothing about it. Not fear, not guilt, not anything. Just empty.) 

You feel _fine_. 

To prove that statement, you sit there and do absolutely nothing for some length of time, until D comes back in and tells you that he's taking you home.

* * *

Technically, he takes you to a hotel room, but that's good enough. You can't actually go back to the apartment, after all; it has to have been ruled a crime scene, the cops are probably still working on stripping evidence from it and shit. 

You're cool with the hotel, though. There's a bed, and you have no problem crawling into it, pulling a pillow over your head, and passing the fuck out. 

It's not exactly the kind of sleep you want—too many dreams—but you guess it's as good as you're going to get.

**Author's Note:**

> this could have had a better ending but yeah no, sorry. "Fight Club" is the next work in the series; go read that.


End file.
